FINISHED READING - Out by Natsuo Kirino

Four women turn up for the night shift in a factory that packs Japanese ready meals. There is a co-dependent camaraderie amongst the four of them. Though they work the same production line together every evening, they only selectively reveal the true state of their lives. Outside of work, agency over their life at home is severely compromised by a loveless marriage, a husband who has recently walked out, one is stuck with an ailing dependent relative to care for, another a husband who having gambled away all their savings, is now physically abusing his wife

Their lives are sad, hand to mouth, existences. Borrowing money from each other to tide them over or pay for unexpected expenses. They work night shifts because it earns them better wages for shorter hours. Meshing better with their home life, it makes practical and emotional sense. They all get time away from situations that are slow burn torture. Then one night Yayoi, badly bruised, confesses to Masako that she has killed her husband. Masako decides to help her get rid of the body, and co-opts or coerces the other two friends to help in the disposal of it.

In the background, someone is accosting women from the factory on their way to or from home. An opportunistic loan shark is bearing down on a repayment schedule being kept to. And a dangerous yakuza who runs a brothel and gambling racket,who has a twisted sexual kink, finds himself drawn towards the four women. As the main characters steeply descend into this monsterous dark underbelly that their actions have opened up, it reveals more about their pasts and fundamental psychology of all of them.

Out is a compelling read, an unflinching portrayal of immoral consequences, with plot twists and turns that wrong foot your expectations. All the way through you suspect this is unlikely to turn out well. How it actually unravels is what keeps you reading. Kirino's strength is in the descriptive detail and appreciation for her characters lives, for a style of life you rarely read of in Japanese novels - the just about managing working class. These are severely constrained lives this quartet of central characters have to somehow exist within. Kirino is adept at maintaining some sort of sympathy for all of them, even in the desperation of their very worst unguarded behaviours. 

What happens to their friendships, their individual mindsets, as the gruesome consequences of their actions cranks up, is graphic and psychologically unsparing. Showing how an easy work based camaraderie quickly dissolves, and the petty jealousies, recriminations, carelessness and fundamental selfishness underneath kicks in and takes over.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8